Word: teche
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they're serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol--ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter--in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil's filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide...
Stand-up comics are the suicide bombers of the cultural world. They act alone, using stripped-down devices - a mike, and maybe a glass of water or a barstool. Their weapon, language, is decidedly low-tech, so they rely on the element of surprise to startle unsuspecting crowds. "If a joke is set up properly, and detonates properly," says Irish comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, the effect is revelatory: "If you and your audience see something in a new way, and the explosion is joy and laughter, that's the most rewarding thing in the world, apart from...
American households average 26 pieces of electronics, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, and spend $1,500 a year on tech toys. To look for more stuff, 150,000 visitors flocked to this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the wired world's annual gadget extravaganza, in Las Vegas. So did we. Here are some cool new devices...
Some communities, however, have opted for much lower-tech solutions. In County Mayo, Ireland, where rising pedestrian accidents have caused concern, elementary-school children persuaded the Irish Road Safety Authority last week to revive a popular 1970s ditty called the "Safe Cross Code," which exhorts six easy steps (including "look for a safe place" and "don't hurry") for safe street crossing. But even the classics can sometimes afford a little modernization: the Irish musician Brendan Grace has agreed to re-record the old-time jingle as a cell-phone ringtone, which can now be downloaded for a fee that...
...well paid. Braithwaite compares it to luxury automobiles. "If you built Rolls-Royces in China, you'd never get another sale. The product has to be fantastic." Yachts are still mostly handcrafted, although manufacturers now rely more on new technologies to improve quality and speed production. Sunseeker has a tech center outside Poole where robots help churn out components, ranging from dashboards to furniture...